As we look around the world we can see that life on this planet is currently impacted by multiple disasters … and existential threats, of which climate change is just one, hover more closely around us as their potentiating factors accumulate.
If we see this and imagine what is to come, it would be easy to fuse our life energy with the arising emotional turbulence.
But if we do that.. then life’s energy flowing with our dualising attention – acting like gelatin – will bring deeper apparent ‘solidification’ and deepen the dualising separation…of our separated sense of ‘self’ and our other imaginings from their ground.
We were talking about the impact of recent events generally and how they impact us…in the group a few weeks ago.
Later I found this unpublished post in drafts written quite a while ago…and added links to some of the material which can be so helpful to us…as we open more into the dharma.
As James has explained our egoic capacity is like a very small pot, and easily overwhelmed.
So we may then become fearful… with sinking feelings of powerlessness, maybe depression…
or, on the other hand, anxiously aroused into the belief that ‘tooling up and mobilising in’ will solve the problem. ‘I must do something…and doing anything is better than doing nothing!’
From the general Mahayana view these reactions are completely normal for sentient beings – driven by the karmic tendencies arising from prior dualistic activity… with the various polarities of seeking pleasure, profit, praise and fame and wanting to avoid sorrow, loss, blame, and infamy as our primary goals.
If we look through the lens of impermanence we can see how suffering will inevitably result from this ….and our ability to be present with circumstances will be diminished, restricting our availability both for connectivity with others… and to our own innate open potential…
Putting our heads in the sand, crossing our fingers and assuming that there will be a stable basis for enacting the continuity of our habitual patterns in an increasingly unstable world, would limit our connectivity with the actuality of our ever-changing world and set us up for deep shock and dislocation as the fault lines and gullies of our imaginedly stable world open up in front of us.
Some time ago James counselled that this was a time for deep practice, meditation and prayers.
As has been observed ‘there will never be peace on the outside until there is peace on the inside.’
In deep practice outside and inside aren’t separate… and arisings self-liberate without disturbance.
Realising the emptiness of form, which is taught in the Heart Sutra, is the basis for this…
You can find the meaning of this profound sutra is explained… or gestured towards… by commentary, in many places …
For example:
…in the practice text Repelling all troubles
…in these audio recordings… nos.19 and 20 from the book Longing for Limitless Light.
… in Macclesfield talk 13 …The Illusory nature of Experience March 2012
The text of the Heart Sutra, which is the basis for this talk, begins ‘Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness not other than form’….
The expounds the statements of the sutra about the true nature of all phenomena, including what we take to be ourselves.
This is so very ‘other than’ we how habitually imagine it to be yet James explains freshly, clearly, and accessibly.
and in this last suggestion…which is not the least!
…The recently published book by James Low ‘The Deep and Vast Freedom of the Dharma’ invites us into a deep exploration and reflection of the truth our being….to discover that how we actually exist is other than the psedo-encapsulation offered by our egoic-identity.
It offers us a deepening appreciation of how the different aspects of dharma teachings, and different practices can facilitate our realisation of this truth
As you can see from the link..it’s contents includes Shine and Vipassana, meditation instructions, the Repelling all troubles – Dokpa practice text, with much else… that is – maybe after a fair amount of head-scratching – eye-opening…
There are prayers for waking, for the end of the day… and it ends with a profound prayer for all.
It’s the first book on the recommended reading list/study program that James has put together for us… and a truly precious resource.
